Going Green at Algoma Steel

Steel plants are dirty places. I was quite aware of that when I was growing up in the Sault. Even living a few miles away from "the plant", our snow would occasionally get darkened by dust blowing off the coal piles at Algoma Steel. And you could see (abd sometimes smell) the smoke and steam from the blast furnaces that were the plant's glowing heart.

Now most of those blast furnaces are shuttered or torn down and soon they will all be gone, replaced by mammoth electric arc furnaces that will melt scrap metal and iron to make steel, drastically reducing the pollution, and especially carbon dioxide, coming from the plant. 

The Globe and Mail looks at Algoma Steel's new venture and what it will mean to help meet Canada's goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

When fully operational, Algoma’s project is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by three million tonnes annually, or 70 per cent. That equates to more than a tenth of Canada’s 2030 goal under the Paris Agreement. It will also eliminate smokestack and fugitive emissions, the company says. The first furnace is expected to begin startup operations at the end of this year.

It's a laudable goal but it's going to be hard on the already shaky economy of the Sault.

One of the of the tough aspects of the changeover for the community is the plant will require fewer workers, because of the efficiency of the technology. It currently employs about 3,000 people, and once it makes the transition, that number will fall to 1,600 to 1,700, Mr. Garcia says.

When I worked there as a summer student during my university days, Algoma Steel employed more than 4,000 people, and that was down quite a bit from its peak. The transition to "green steel" is going to be a hard one for the Sault, but it is necessary, and just one of the many that Canada's resource-driven economy has to make in the future.